Now THAT'S a scepter.

Attention Beard Brethren! I have received a rare and unexpected gift yesterday, my "trophy" for my Beards 4 Boobs victory last November.

It is amazing.

It is glorious.

It will be framed and placed on my mantle above my peace prize, Iron man award and dangerous animal busts.

Kudos to you Bob and Double Kudos to the amazing work of A. Steigleder and N. Metger.

Thanks very much!

-Your Benevolent King

Dog approved!!

All trimmed and ready for the weekend.

It may be past midnight on the east coast but it's only 9:37 here in Alaska.

It was great to do this again with my brother Kris and the rest of you gentlemen.

Hey there!

And that's it. As of this writing (which, admittedly, is a bit past midnight), we're at $3,977.76. Quite respectable. Our winner again this year is Pete DiLillo, who not only rallied nearly $1,000 in sponsorship himself, but took us on a trippy, photoshoppy ride all month long. Thanks and well done to Pete. I'll have to see if he wants another winner's shirt for 2012, or perhaps we'll work something else out.

Thanks also to all of our sponsors and to each of our contributors, who once again made November more entertaining and more cancer-killing than it might otherwise have been.

Me, I'm glad to have this forum and this beard, if only for a few more hours. It's good to see old faces and new, growing hair for the sake of our lady folks' health.

The End

"Hey! You with the beard! What's going on?"

"Well, I'm afraid, Daniel, that you've died. Welcome to the Pearly Gates."

"What? How? I was just driving home from work, then poof."

"That's how it happens sometimes. Of course, if you hadn't been texting, you might have seen the large truck crossing the divider."

"Would that have helped?"

St. Peter turned to a massive book on his podium and licked a thumb. He turned a few pages and then scanned down with his forefinger. "Ah," he said at last, tapping the book, "Nope. Not one bit."

"Oh. Well, it's probably just as well, then. So, uh, you're really here, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"You. Heaven. Hell. The whole thing. I was pretty sure until a few moments ago you were the figment of someone's imagination."

"Not a believer, eh?" said St. Peter as he turned back to his book. After a few moments, he turned back. "Crossed signals. We get them from time to time. Hmm. Yes, you were bound for eternal nothingness. I can transfer you if you'd like."

"What?"

"To the afterlife of your choosing. This is a bit embarrassing. Most people don't get the choice, you know. When they cross over, their souls get directed to the proper place and the system runs smoothly enough. But every now and then, as with you, we have a glitch."

"So I can just choose?"

"Yes, well the Jig, as they say, is Up. If I sent you to eternal nothingness now that you know there are other possibilities, that wouldn't be very sporting, would it? Although, I hear it's quite nice. Peaceful in weird sort of way. So what'll it be? Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, Samsara, Elysium? Haven't had an Elysium in a while. Couple of Hades last month, but no Elysium."

"Samsara, that's like reincarnation, right? I think I'd like that."

"Careful, now. Messy business, reincarnation. Don't know what you're going to get when you get back down there. Could be Bill Gates, could be a deformed cockroach. But I repeat myself."

Daniel didn't laugh.

St. Peter did, though. He tried to suppress his mirth, but a chuckle spilled out nonetheless. He continued a moment later, "A little reincarnation humor. Anyway, the point is it's a crap shoot. Plus, you can't have anything you learned this go around go back with you. Has a lot in common with eternal nothingness, now that I think about it. This you just kinda goes poof and a new you pops up on Earth."

"Hmm. Yeah, I guess I'd kind of like to keep my consciousness. What options let me do that?"

"Well, most of the pit or paradise options you people have dreamed up over the millennia work that way. Trouble is, the paradises are full of righteous busybodies, and the pits are, well the pits."

"Alright, fine. How about Elysium?"

"How's your Greek?"

Talkin' 'bout crazy, crazy, man beards.

It's here. The final day. Per usual I've enjoyed reading all of my fellow bearder's posts and talkin' it up throughout the month. And as a collective we were highly successful in my book. The night is not quite over and we have over $3600 toward the BCRF. Not too shabby gents.

Yesterday's answer:

... Nd3+

e2xNd3(f) Qxg3+

Ke2(f) Nd4#

5 points to Wes

4 points to Jim and Dennis (via PM). (Bg4 can be thwarted with HxBg4 or NxBg4)

Still, a good showing gents. This pic has inspired me for next year. I think I will pit my beard against all other B4B beards in chess. Each pic will be my move for the day. Let's hope I remember that theme in 11 months and actually follow through with it.

Grand totals:

Wesley 13

Jim 9

Dennis 5

Bob 4

Kris 1

bh 1

Wes will receive a B4B t-shirt for his diligence and intelligence, on my dime. We'll discuss details in person. Congrats!

See you all next year!

Made it!

Hey, look! All caught up!

We're in the waning minutes of HoNoToGroABeMo for 2012, and Mr. DiLillo has taken the lead. We shall see what the next 30 minutes brings.

To inspire the last round of donations, I give you our final competitor for the month - hailing from his spring residence in Palm Beach, FL, his summer residence in Hyannis Port, MA, his autumn residence in Bel Air, CA, and his winter residence in Netherlands Antilles, I give you... The Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase!

Be inspired by his rich, glorious beard and donate monies for boobs!

Because money isn't everything... it's the ONLY thing:

Be generous with your donations, and let the best beard win!

One...

Today's timeshifted competitor hails from the Isle of Tonga... I give you Haku!

Although the beard was tame by islander standards, Tonga 'Uli'uli Fifita, also known as Haku and Meng, is our final wildman wrestler of the month. Do you need any credentials beyond his terrifying visage above? And the legend that Fifita is held by his fellow wrestlers to be the legitimately toughest of them ever? You do? Fine.

Behold, one of the greatest finishing moves of all time: The Tongan Death Grip!

Here Haku, crowned as king after winning The King Of The Ring competition, defeats a beardless Harley Race. Not only because he is awesome, but because Race has no beard (A bearded Race will show up in an Honorable Mentions post tomorrow):

This is what 30 days will getcha!

Well, here it is, my first ever 30 days of beard growth in Alaska. So I had to include something Alaskan. The sun set around 3:30 this afternoon and it almost got up to 20on degrees!

Two...

Today's timeshifted competitors hail from Vancouver, BC... I give you, The Natural Disasters!

John "Earthquake" Tenta. Fred "Typhoon" Ottman. Two large men. Two impressive beards. Two silly names and funny sets of wrestling tights. In some sense, for better or for worse, this is what wrestling is all about.

Today's bearded combat involved the man known as Earthquake against yesterday's man known as Hacksaw:

Three...

Today's timeshifted competitor hails from Glens Falls, NY... I give you "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan!

Duggan has been wrestling since the '80's with a strange amalgam of "attractive American" qualities: college football player, carries around a 2x4 wooden beam, sports a manly beard, and leads the crowd in chants of "USA!" This odd combination has given him enduring popularity with wrestling audiences, and his cooky personality has led to interesting interviews outside of the ring:

I think my beard looks fuller from a distance...so I'm a bit further away for this final picture. Enjoy!

So I made my word count for NaNoWriMo last night, but I'm still a chapter or two (maybe a chapter and an epilogue) away from finishing the story.

But I'm getting up at 5AM tomorrow to take my son on a scout trip to a battleship. So I've decided I don't need to stay up past 11PM to hit word count and thus...I won't.

Will I give you a follow-up post tomorrow with the end of the story? Maybe. Or maybe this was my clever (read: "accidental") marketing scheme. Give you an unedited first draft from an unknown inexperienced writer all the way up to the end and then...BAM, leave you hanging.

How does it end? You say.

Will Ranson and Geon survive the final battle? Why did Krissa attack her allies? Will Jeff find a way to create the longest run on sentence in the history of language? And what about the beard? Is Ranson finally going to get to shave and start his life anew?

Well I could answer all those, or I could leave you in suspense and make you come back to the site a bit later. Which you'll want to do anyway, because in a day or two (not week or more like some times in the past, right?) Cmaaaarrrrrrr! will be posting this year's HoNoToGroABeMo awards.

Mwha ha ha ha ha...it would all be very cruel, indeed, if anyone had read the story to this point so far.

On a side note, I'm fairly pleased with the story I've crafted. I think it went well. I'm considering a few options with what to do with it. I'm thinking to self-publish (probably focused on e-book options more than PoD) and sell cheap and perhaps podcast it as well. Any thoughts/suggestions? I'm more considering it as an experiment than as a career move. I'm not particularly interested in becoming a career writer, I just like telling stories.